food and bioproducts processing 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 392–398

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Food and Bioproducts Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fbp

Optimization of the distillation process of Chinese liquor by

comprehensive experimental investigation

Hailong Li a , Weixing Huang a,∗ , Caihong Shen b , Bin Yi b

a School of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
b Key Laboratory of Liquor Making Bio. Tech. & Appl. of Sichuan Province, Luzhou 646000, China

a b s t r a c t

Systematic experiments were carried out to optimize the distillation process of Chinese liquor through an
industrial-scale distiller. Effect of the operation conditions on the yield and quality of the liquor, and varia-
tion of liquor components during distillation were investigated. The steam flowrate of 1.60 kg/min gives the best
yield and quality, suggesting there exists an optimal flowrate for the distillation. The yield and quality of the
liquor drops down obviously with the increase of bulk density, implying that the fermented grains should be
loosely packed. Increasing the bed height from 600 to 1250 mm enhances the yield and quality, indicating that
current distiller (commonly used bed height from 700 to 900 mm) has great potential of improvement. Adding
small amount of edible alcohol in the steam boiler is proven to increase the liquor yield, but excess amount
causes the quality degraded sharply. The liquor-vapor leaking is found to commonly occur at the initial stage
of distillation process and dramatically decrease the yield and quality. A simple method is proposed to elimi-
nate the leaking effectively. The gas chromatography analysis results show that the variation of flavor compounds
during distillation is closely related to their dissolving properties in ethanol.
© 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Chinese liquor; Distillation; Optimization; Steam flowrate; Bulk density; Bed height

1. Introduction
Chinese liquor is a popular alcoholic beverage with a con-
sumption of more than 4 million kilograms and sale revenue of
about 500 billion Chinese Yuan (CNY) each year (China Brewing
Industry Association and China Alcoholic Drinks Industry
Editorial Board, 2008). According to the aroma characteristics,
Chinese liquor can be generally divided into five styles: the
strong aroma style, light aroma style, sauce aroma style, rice
aroma style and miscellaneous aroma style (Fan and Qian,
2006a). The manufacturing of Chinese liquor consists of three
consecutive processes: fermentation, distillation and blend-
ing. The fermentation is typically operated at 28–32 ◦ C for a
few months under anaerobic conditions in a solid state. After-
wards, the fermented grains are distilled with steam to extract
ethanol and other flavor compounds. Finally, after being aged
for a period of time, these distillates are blended to yield the
final product. The distillation plays a critical role to link the
initial fermentation with the final blending. The goal of dis-
tillation is to extract the flavor compounds in the fermented
grains. Therefore, the distillation process determines the yield
and quality of the final product. For a long time, the research
on Chinese liquor has been mainly focused on the species of
microorganism and the formations of flavor compounds dur-
ing the fermentation process (Shi et al., 2009; Xiang et al.,
2005; Zhang et al., 2005) and focused on the qualitative and
quantitative analysis of the components in the final prod-
ucts (Fan and Qian, 2006a, 2006b; Zhu et al., 2007). However,
the distillation process has been less investigated and cur-
rently applied distillation operation still follows the way that
it has been done in ancient time. Therefore, the investiga-
tion of distillation process and improvement of its efficiency is
an important subject in the present development of Chinese
liquor.
To optimize the distillation process, the following fac-
tors are important to be considered: (1) The steam flowrate,

∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 28 85405209; fax: +86 28 85403397.
E-mail address: hwx@scu.edu.cn (W. Huang).
Received 27 March 2011; Received in revised form 29 August 2011; Accepted 19 December 2011
0960-3085/$ – see front matter © 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.fbp.2011.12.005
 food and bioproducts processing 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 392–398
which represents the heating rate and convective strength,
has important influence on the distillation process. In the
present production, the steam flowrate has not been defi-
nitely quantified, yet is mainly dependent on the intuition
of the operating workers. The random choice of the steam
flowrate leads to low distillation efficiency and great difficulty
in maintaining the stability of the yield and quality of the
liquor. Only 55–75% of the ethanol in the fermented grains
can be effectively distilled out (Pu, 2005a). The extraction effi-
ciencies for ethyl acetate, ethyl butanoic, ethyl hexanoate
and ethyl lactate, which are the most important flavor com-
pounds in the strong aroma style liquor, have been found to
be only about 8.5%, 3.5%, 30% and 10%, respectively (Chen
et al., 2009). Some researchers point out that slower heating
rate is favorable for the distillation process (Pu, 2005a; Wan
et al., 1998; Zhong et al., 2008), while the quantitative rela-
tions between the yield and quality of the liquor and steam
flowrate have not been clearly known. Therefore, it is neces-
sary to experimentally investigate the effect of steam flowrate
on the yield and quality of the liquor. (2) The bulk density
and bed height of fermented grains: The bulk density, closely
related to the porosity, determines the resistance of steam
flow and the areas for mass and heat transfer. Therefore, the
bulk density certainly affects the distillation products. The
bulk density is much dependent on the mode of loading the
grains. Accordingly, understanding of the effect of the bulk
density is meaningful for the design of the loading mechani-
cal device. However, there have been few reports about this
factor thus far. The current used bed height of fermented
grains is 700–900 mm, which is determined according to the
height of operational worker, but not by the distillation pro-
cess itself. Pu (2005b) has pointed out that the increase of bed
height leads to a gradual increase in the liquor yield of per
unit mass of fermented grains. However, the research is lim-
ited to the bed height lower than 1000 mm. The circumstance
for the bed height beyond 1000 mm is seldomly reported as
far as we know. (3) The cross-steaming technique: Du and
Song (2004) and Zhang et al. (2003) have proposed that the
cross-steaming by adding edible alcohol in the steam boiler is
an effective technique to enhance the liquor yield. However,
the relationship between the liquor quality and the addition
mount of edible alcohol is poorly known. (4) The liquor-vapor
leaking: Water sealing has been used to joint the parts of
the liquor distiller for a long time because of its easy opera-
tion and low-cost, while the liquor-vapor usually leaks during
the distillation process, especially in the initial stage. The
distillate obtained at the initial distillation stage has been
demonstrated to be high quality product (Li et al., in press),
so the leaking may leads to the loss of high quality products
theoretically. However, there is not experimental report about
the effect of the leaking on the yield and quality and no effec-
tive method has been developed to eliminate the leaking up
to now.
In this work, systematic experiments were carried out in
an industrial-scale distiller to investigate the effect of steam
flowrate, bulk density, bed height, cross-steam technique and
liquor-vapor leaking on the yield and quality of the strong
aroma style liquor, and the variations of flavor compounds
during distillation process. As a typical representation of Chi-
nese liquor, the strong aroma style liquor takes up about
70% of the total production (Shi et al., 2007). The findings
in this work also have important reference for other aroma
liquors on account of the essential similarity of the distillation
processes.
393
2. Experimental
2.1. Experimental setup
A schematic diagram of the experimental distiller used in
this study is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of a steam supply
pipe, a steam boiler, a steam distributor, a barrel for the fer-
mented grains, a lid, a liquor-vapor tube and a condenser for
the liquor-vapor. The linkage between the steam boiler and
barrel is packing seal, and the other points are sealed by water.
The experimental distiller is in industrial-scale, where the
inner diameter and height of the barrel are 1000 and 1250 mm,
respectively.
2.2. Experiment design
All the fermented grains used in this work were taken from the
production field of a famous company for brewing the strong
aroma style liquor. The grains were proportionally mixed with
a little rice hull according to the production technology. When
the barrel was full of the mixed fermented grains, primary
steam was introduced into the steam boiler to produce more
durative and even secondary steam. The secondary steam
went through the distributor to heat the grains. The liquor-
vapor flowed out of the grain bed and was condensed to be
the distillation products. The experiments were performed
with the secondary steam flowrate from 1.20 to 3.30 kg/min,
the bed height from 600 to 1250 mm and the bulk density of
389.7, 443.2 and 557.6 kg/m3 . The method to determine the
secondary steam flowrate is to measure the flowrate of the
condensates after a long distillation time.
The effect of the steam flowrate were investigated at six
levels of the flowrates, i.e., 1.20, 1.60, 1.90, 2.30, 2.50 and
3.30 kg/min, with keeping the bed height and bulk density
fixed at 1250 mm and 389.7 kg/m3 , respectively, and with-
out any added edible alcohol. The effect of the bulk density
were considered at three levels of the densities, i.e., 389.7,
443.2 and 557.6 kg/m3 , with keeping the bed height and steam
flowrate fixed at 1250 mm and 1.60 kg/min, respectively, and
without any added edible alcohol. The different bulk densi-
ties were obtained from different loading methods: (1) drop
the grains into the barrel layer by layer; (2) drop the grains
into the barrel from the upper edge of the barrel; and (3)
drop the grains and shake the barrel simultaneously. The
effect of the bed height were studied at seven levels of the
heights, i.e., 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 1100 and 1250 mm, with
keeping the steam flowrate fixed at 1.60 kg/min, and with-
out any added edible alcohol. The grains were loaded with
Fig. 1 – Schematic diagram of the experimental distiller (1:
steam pipe; 2: steam boiler; 3: steam distributor; 4: barrel;
5: lid; 6: liquor-vapor tube; 7: condenser; 8: outlet of the
condenser; 9: sampling bottle).
394 food and bioproducts processing 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 392–398
the layer by layer mode, and the bulk density was in the
range of 389.7–405.5 kg/m3 (higher bed with larger density).
The effect of the cross-steaming technique were discussed
at five volume levels of edible alcohol, i.e., 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 L,
with keeping the bed height, steam flowrate and bulk density
fixed at 1250 mm, 1.60 kg/min and 389.7 kg/m3 , respectively.
The added edible alcohol is composed of ethanol and water,
in which the ethanol concentration is 95% by volume.
The distillates were continuously collected through the
whole distillation process. The distillate samples were divided
into two parts based on their ethanol concentrations in line
with the actual production: the distillates with ethanol con-
centration higher than 45% by volume were the effective
products, while those with ethanol concentration lower than
45% by volume were the non-effective products for poor qual-
ity. The yield and quality of effective products are employed
as the criterions for the distillation assessment and the effec-
tive products are called ‘liquor’ for short in this study. All the
distillation experiments were twice repeated and the results
were expressed as mean data.
In order to better present the variation of flavor compounds
during the distillation process, the dimensionless concentra-
tions C1 defined as C1 = ci,t /c̄i,t is introduced, where ci,j is the
concentration of one specific flavor compound i in the dis-
tillates obtained at j distillation time period and c̄i,t is the
arithmetic average value of ci,j . To express the effect of addition
amount of edible alcohol into the boiler on the concentrations
of flavor compounds in the liquor, the dimensionless concen-
trations C2 is adopted. The definition of C2 (C2 = ci,V /c̄i,V ) is
similar to that of C1 , where ci,V is the concentration of fla-
vor compound i in the liquors obtained at different addition
amounts of edible alcohol in the steam boiler (V = 0, 2, 4, 6
and 8 L) and c̄i,V is the arithmetic average value of ci,V . The
dimensionless concentrations of the important flavor com-
pounds in the strong aroma style liquor were calculated, such
as, 1-propanol, 1-butanol, isobutanol, 1-hexanol, ethyl acetate,
ethyl butanoic, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl lactate, acetic acid and
hexanoic acid.
2.3. Chemical and sensory analysis
Ethanol concentration was determined by a density meter
(DMA 5000, Anton Paar, Graz, Austria), based upon the rela-
tionship between the density of water–ethanol mixtures and
the concentration of ethanol in the water–ethanol mixtures.
An Agilent 6980 N (America) gas chromatography fitted with
a flame ionization detector (FID) and a HP-INNOWax column
of 60 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 ␮m (Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, CA)
were used to quantify the flavor compounds. The experiment
was carried out at constant pressure, using nitrogen with the
flowrate of 1.8 ml/min as the carrier gas. Each concentrated
sample was injected at a split ratio of 1:50. The column tem-
perature was firstly programmed at 40 ◦ C for 4 min, followed by
increases of 2.5 ◦ C/min to 60 ◦ C and then 25 ◦ C/min to 120 ◦ C,
and increased from 10 ◦ C/min to 240 ◦ C, and held at 240 ◦ C for
4 min. Injector and detector temperatures were 240 ◦ C. The
analyses were performed in three replications.
The sensory quality was evaluated in duplicate by two well-
trained experts. They had more than 10 years experience in the
sensory analysis for Chinese liquor. Sensory attributes, includ-
ing taste, smell and aftertaste, were evaluated using a 10 point
hedonic scale, where 1 means dislike extremely and 10 means
like extremely.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Effect of the steam flowrate on the yield and
quality of the liquor
Fig. 2 shows the effect of the steam flowrate qm on the liquor
yield m and quality. The yield in the study is calculated
based on 100 kg fermented grains, in which the concentra-
tion of ethanol is 60% by volume. As can be seen from
Fig. 2(a), increasing the steam flowrate from 1.20 to 1.60 kg/min
enhances the yield of the liquor, but with further increasing
the flowrate, the yield turns to decrease, especially after the
steam flowrate exceeds to 2.30 kg/min. This phenomenon may
come down to the thermodynamics and mass transfer dur-
ing the distillation process. The lower steam flowrate cannot
provide the thermal condition for full evaporation of ethanol
in the fermented grains, while the higher flowrate causes
the grains to be pasted so that the mass diffusion within
the grains become slower. Both situations results in lower
liquor yield. Differently, with the increase in steam flowrate,
a single decreasing trend for the yield was reported by some
researchers (Pu, 2005a; Wan et al., 1998). This may be due to
that their experimental conditions are limited to high steam
flowrates, not covering low steam flowrates. It can be observed
from Fig. 2(b) that the liquor distilled with the steam flowrate
of 1.60 kg/min possesses the best quality. Therefore, from the
viewpoints of higher yield and better quality, there exists an
optimal steam flowrate for efficient distillation.
The liquor quality is mainly dependent on the concentra-
tions of flavor compounds. Table 1 gives the concentrations
of representative flavor compounds in the strong aroma type
liquor distilled from different steam flowrates. The ethanol
concentration shows an upgrade tendency with the increase
of steam flowrate from 1.20 to 1.60 kg/m3 , while it turns to
decrease for further increasing the flowrate. Furthermore, the
change of the concentration of flavor compounds presents
close relationship with the dissolving properties in ethanol.
The concentrations of alcohol-soluble compounds, such as 1-
propanol, 1-butanol, ethyl acetate, ethyl butanoic and ethyl
hexanoate, exhibit similar trends with that of ethanol, while
the concentration of water-soluble compounds, such as ethyl
lactate, acetic acid and hexanoic acid, are opposite to that of
ethanol.
Fig. 3 shows the dimensionless concentrations of flavor
compounds (C1 ) in the distillates obtained from different
distillation stages. The dimensionless concentrations (C1 )
reflect the changes of the concentrations of flavor compounds
Fig. 2 – Effect of the steam flowrate (qm ) on the liquor yield
(m) and quality.
 food and bioproducts processing 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 392–398 395

Table 1 – Effect of the steam flowrate on the concentrations of the flavor compounds (g/L).
Compounds Steam flowrate, qm (kg/min)

1.20 1.60 1.90 2.30 2.50 3.30

Ethanol (%v/v) 61.008 66.322 65.875 62.322 59.123 53.324

1-Propanol 1.144 1.645 1.922 1.498 1.287 1.132
1-Butanol 2.425 2.584 2.816 2.676 2.380 2.128
Isobutanol 0.393 0.513 0.473 0.413 0.362 0.397
1-Hexanol 2.668 3.290 3.127 2.644 2.226 1.903
Ethyl acetate 17.367 19.167 18.815 16.024 13.128 10.255
Ethyl butanoic 5.591 5.844 5.713 5.523 5.213 4.804
Ethyl hexanoate 39.290 42.042 40.126 38.930 37.747 35.834
Ethyl lactate 52.759 44.233 50.081 55.438 58.785 63.811
Acetic acid 4.302 4.250 4.350 4.422 4.5061 4.679
Butanoic acid 2.844 2.858 3.011 3.165 3.297 3.350
Hexanoic acid 6.566 6.504 6.960 7.898 8.929 9.058

Values are presented as mean of three replicates.

during the distillation process. As can be seen from Fig. 3,

the dimensionless concentrations of alcohol-soluble com-
pounds gradually decrease during the distillation process,
indicating the concentrations of alcohol-soluble compounds
increase gradually during the distillation process; while
those for water-soluble compounds exhibit increased trends,
implying increased concentrations during the process. Also,
the different decreasing/increasing rates for these alcohol-
compounds/water-compounds can be attributed to different
compatibility with ethanol. The result implies that the varia-
tions of flavor compounds during the distillation process are
closely related to their dissolving properties in ethanol.
Fig. 4 – Effect of the bulk density () on the liquor yield (m)
3.2. The relationship between the bulk density and the and quality.
yield and quality of the liquor

The concentrations of flavor compounds in the liquors dis-

The fermented grains are compressible to a certain extent.
tilled at different bulk densities are analyzed and the results
Different loading modes result in different bulk densities. The
are shown in Table 2. It can be seen from this table that the
effect of the bulk density on the liquor yield m and quality is
concentrations of flavor compounds gradually decrease with
presented in Fig. 4, in which 1 , 2 and 3 denote the bulk den-
the increase of bulk density, which can be attributed to the
sity of 389.7, 443.2 and 557.6 kg/m3 , respectively. The increase
increase of diffusion resistance. The decrease of the concen-
in the bulk density leads to a steady downward trend of the
tration of flavor compounds may explain the degradation of
liquor yield. The quality attributes including taste, smell and
the quality. The results indicate that the operation of loading
aftertaste, also exhibit gradual reduction tendency with the
the fermented grains should be aimed at forming loosely bed,
increase of bulk density. This may be due to the fact that the
which is an important consideration for the design of loading
increase in bulk density leads to the increase of the resis-
equipment.
tance for steam flow, and the decrease of the areas of heat
and mass transfer, which is unfavorable for the diffusion of
flavor compounds.
Table 2 – Effect of the bulk density on the concentrations
of the flavor compounds (g/L).
Compounds  (kg/m3 )

389.7 443.2 557.6

1-Propanol 1.645 1.535 1.280

1-Butanol 2.584 2.403 2.052
Isobutanol 0.513 0.440 0.326
1-Hexanol 3.290 2.897 2.338
Ethyl acetate 19.167 16.555 13.525
Ethyl butanoic 5.844 5.669 5.104
Ethyl hexanoate 42.042 39.324 36.016
Ethyl lactate 53.902 48.367 44.233
Acetic acid 4.585 4.432 4.250
Butanoic acid 3.281 3.046 2.858
Hexanoic acid 8.953 7.604 6.504
Fig. 3 – Variations of the dimensionless concentrations of
Values are presented as mean of three replicates.
the flavor compounds during the distillation process.
396 food and bioproducts processing 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 392–398
Fig. 5 – Effect of the bed height (H) on the liquor yield (m)
and quality.
3.3. Effect of the bed height on the yield and quality of
the liquor
At different bed heights, the amounts of the fermented
grains used in the distillation are obviously different (183 kg
at 600 mm, 214 kg at 700 mm, 245 kg at 800 mm, 280 kg at
900 mm, 312 kg at 1000 mm, 347 kg and 1100 mm and 397 kg
at 1250 mm). For reasonable comparison, the liquor yields
per 100 kg fermented grains obtained at different bed heights
are shown in Fig. 5(a). The increase in the bed height from
600 to 1250 mm leads to steady enhancement in the liquor
yield (Fig. 5(a)). This may be due to the fact that higher grain
bed provides longer flow-path for steam, which benefits for
the accumulation of ethanol to produce effective products
(ethanol concentration higher than 45% by volume). It can also
be observed from Fig. 5(a) that the increasing rate of liquor
yield is slowed, especially after 1100 mm. This may be due to
the fact that as the ethanol accumulates in steam, the differ-
ence of ethanol concentrations between the fermented grain
and the steam become smaller, so that the transport of ethanol
from the grains to the steam becomes slower. The liquor qual-
ity is continuously enhanced with the increase of bed height
from 600 to 1250 mm (Fig. 5(b)). When the bed height increases
from the present 800 mm (the bed height currently used in
industrial operation) to 1250 mm, the yield is enhanced about
30%, implying that there exists great potential for the improve-
ment of current distillation equipment. It should be pointed
out that high bed height leads to labor-intensive operation of
loading the fermented grains. To reduce the labor intensity of
loading operation, it is essential to explore suitable mechani-
cal equipment to achieve the loading process.
Table 3 shows the concentrations of flavor compounds
in the liquors distilled from different bed heights. The
alcohol-soluble compounds present a positive growth with the
increase of bed height, while the water-soluble compounds
exhibit a negative growth. The results once again show that
the variations of flavor compounds during the distillation
have close relationship with their dissolving properties in
ethanol.
3.4. The cross-steaming technique and its effect on the
yield and quality of the liquor
Five levels of edible alcohol with the volume of 0, 2, 4, 6 and
8 L were added into the steam boiler to investigate the effect
of the cross-steaming technique on the yield and quality of
the liquor. The liquor yield m is positively correlated with the
Fig. 6 – Effect of the cross-steaming on the liquor yield (m)
and quality.
increase of the amount of added edible alcohol (Fig. 6(a)). The
changes of the quality attributes (taste, smell and aftertaste)
with the addition amount of edible alcohol exhibit two differ-
ent trends: the quality of the liquor has inconspicuous change
when a small amount of edible alcohol (<2 L) is added, while an
excess amount of added edible alcohol results in sharp degra-
dation of liquor quality (Fig. 6(b)). Adding 6 L edible alcohol is
found to make the quality unacceptable.
To find the reason for the quality degradation, the dimen-
sionless concentration (C2 ) of flavor compounds in the liquors
obtained with different addition amounts of edible alcohol
is presented in Fig. 7. When a small amount of edible alco-
hol (<2 L) is added, the dimensionless concentrations of flavor
compounds have not obvious change, suggesting that the
concentrations of flavor compounds keep almost constant;
while for further increasing the addition amount, the dimen-
sionless concentrations decrease remarkably, indicating sharp
decreased flavor compounds. The insignificant changes of
flavor compound concentrations may explain inconspicuous
change of liquor quality when a small amount of edible alco-
hol (<2 L) is added, and the degradation of the quality can be
attributed to the remarkable decrease of the concentrations
of flavor compounds when excess amount of edible alcohol
is added. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the cross-
steaming technique could enhance the liquor yield and the
key is to determine appropriate addition amount of edible
alcohol.
Fig. 7 – Effect of the cross-steaming on the dimensionless
concentrations of the flavor compounds.
 food and bioproducts processing 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 392–398 397

Table 3 – Effect of the bed height on the concentrations of the flavor compounds (g/L).
Compounds H (mm)

600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1250

1-Propanol 1.042 1.187 1.254 1.376 1.492 1.569 1.645

1-Butanol 1.680 1.925 2.016 2.173 2.407 2.525 2.584
Isobutanol 0.221 0.290 0.337 0.372 0.414 0.476 0.513
1-Hexanol 1.904 2.584 2.760 2.947 3.149 3.206 3.290
Ethyl acetate 9.362 11.603 14.452 16.332 17.565 18.769 19.167
Ethyl butanoic 4.668 4.903 5.337 5.557 5.640 5.752 5.844
Ethyl hexanoate 33.324 35.644 37.685 39.020 40.373 41.830 42.042
Ethyl lactate 58.756 55.788 53.081 49.446 46.648 44.580 44.233
Acetic acid 4.804 4.674 4.550 4.473 4.382 4.275 4.250
Butanoic acid 3.487 3.246 3.116 3.068 2.945 2.887 2.858
Hexanoic acid 9.568 9.158 8.264 7.782 7.050 6.643 6.504

Values are presented as mean of three replicates.

3.5. The liquor-vapor leaking and its effect on the yield

and quality of the liquor

The liquor-vapor is found to commonly leak from the water-

sealing in the liquor distillation process, especially in the
initial stage. The distillates obtained in the initial stage have
been verified to possess high quality (Li et al., in press), so
the liquor-vapor leaking may leads to the loss of high qual-
ity products theoretically. However, study about the effect
of the leaking on the yield and quality of the liquor has
not been experimentally reported. Even until now, there is
still not effective method to eliminate the leaking. The exist-
ing method of reducing leaking is to turn down the steam
flowrate once the leaking occurs. This method is just a reme-
dial measure and cannot fundamentally eliminate the leaking.
Experiments show that regulating the steam flowrate during
the distillation process not only significantly affects the yield
and quality of liquor, but also leads to instability of the distil-
lation process.
Based on long-term experiment and analysis, we believe
that the main cause for leaking is the temporary rise of pres-
sure resulted from the trapped air in the distiller. The trapped
air is in static state initially and incondensable, which gives
large resistance to the flow of liquor-vapor. Because of the
large resistance, the liquor-vapor cannot flow smoothly into
the condenser and will accumulate in the distiller so that the
pressure in the system increases temporarily until the liquor-
vapor arrives to the condenser at some time later. When the
gas pressure in the distiller surpasses the capacity of the water
sealing, the liquor-vapor will leak. According to the analysis,
we have used a blower to suck the trapped air in the distiller
at the initial distillation stage. This blower is connected to the
outlet of the condenser by a transparent plastic tube. Once
the liquor distillate appears at outlet of the condenser, the
trapped air can be considered to be completely sucked out
and the blower will be shut off. Then, the distillates at the out-
let of condenser will be collected until the end of distillation.
Experiment shows that the method is effective to eliminate
the leaking.
Fig. 8 is the comparative experiments results, which is
used to explore the quantitative effect of the leaking on the
yield and quality of the liquor. When the leaking is elimi-
nated, liquor yield increases dramatically from (the average
yield of) 6.07 kg to 6.36 kg. It reveals that the leaking would
lead to the yield of the liquor decreased by ∼5%. It also can
be seen from Fig. 8 that the liquor obtained in the no-leaking
Fig. 8 – Effect of the liquor-vapor leaking on the yield (m)
and quality of the liquor.
possesses much better quality, compared with the liquor pro-
duced in the leaking one. This result suggests that the leaking
results in remarkable degradation of liquor quality. In con-
clusion, the liquor-vapor leaking is observably unfavorable for
the liquor distillation, and eliminating the leaking can signif-
icantly enhance the yield and quality of the liquor.
4. Conclusions
Comprehensive experiments were carried out in an industrial-
scale distiller in order to optimize the distillation process
of Chinese liquor. It is found that there exists an optimal
steam flowrate for efficient distillation of the liquor. For the
experimental distiller, the steam flowrate of 1.60 kg/min (bed
height = 1250 mm; bulk density = 389.7 kg/m3 ) results in max-
imum liquor yield and best liquor quality. The yield and
quality of the liquor obviously drops down with the increase
of bulk density, implying that the fermented grains should
be loosely packed. Increasing the bed height from 600 to
1250 mm enhances the yield and quality of the liquor, indi-
cating that current distiller (commonly used bed height from
700 to 900 mm) has great potential of improvement. Adding
appropriate amount of edible alcohol in the steam boiler
can increase the liquor yield, but excess addition makes the
quality degraded sharply. The liquor-vapor leaking dramati-
cally brings down the yield and quality of the liquor. The main
cause for the leaking is temporal rise of pressure resulted from
the trapped air in the distiller and a simple method is proposed
to eliminate this leaking. The variations of flavor compounds
398 food and bioproducts processing 9 0 ( 2 0 1 2 ) 392–398
during the distillation process are found to be closely related
to their dissolving properties in ethanol.
The industrial-scaled experiments in the study offer an
important direction for the practical production, especially for
the enhancement and improvement of distillation process and
equipment.
References
Chen, Y.Z., Zhou, R.P., Tang, D.G., 2009. Research on the distilling
extraction rates of trace flavoring compositions in fermented
grains of multiple-grains Luzhou-flavor liquor. Liquor-Making
Science & Technology 183, 80–86.
China Brewing Industry Association and China Alcoholic Drinks
Industry Editorial Board, 2008. Yearbook of China Alcoholic
Drinks Industry (2008). Light Industry Publishing House of
China, Beijing.
Du, G., Song, K., 2004. Application of fermented condensed
pit-flavor cross-steaming liquor in liquor production.
Liquor-Making Science & Technology 126, 114–115.
Fan, W.L., Qian, M.C., 2006a. Characterization of aroma
compounds of Chinese Wuliangye and Jiannanchun liquors
by aroma extract dilution analysis. Journal of Agriculture and
Food Chemistry 54, 2695–2704.
Fan, W.L., Qian, M.C., 2006b. Identification of aroma compounds
in Chinese ‘Yanghe Daqu’ liquor by normal phase
chromatography fractionation followed by gas
chromatography/olfactometry. Flavour Fragrance Journal 21,
333–342.
Li, H.L., Wang, C., Zhu, L., Huang, W.X., Yi, B., Zhang, L., Shen,
C.H., Zhang, S.Y., Xu, D.F. Variations of flavor substances in
distillation process of Chinese Luzhou-flavor liquor. Journal of
Food Process Engineering, in press. http://onlinelibrary.
wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1745-4530/earlyview.
Pu, L.L., 2005a. Study on Distillation Technology of Luzhou Daqu
Liquor. Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin.
Pu, L.L., 2005b. Study on the effects of the height of fermented
grains layer on liquor distillation and liquor quality.
Liquor-Making Science & Technology 128, 42–45.
Shi, E., Huang, W.X., Xiao, Z.Y., Tang, X.Y., Xu, R.Q., Zeng, F.J., 2007.
Study on improvement of the quality in Chinese new-type
liquor by pervaporation with polydimethylsiloxane
membrane. Journal of Food Process Engineering 30, 38–50.
Shi, J.H., Xiao, Y.P., Li, X.R., Ma, E.B., Du, X.W., Quan, Z.X., 2009.
Analyses of microbial consortia in the starter of Fen liquor.
Letter Application Microbiology 48, 478–485.
Wan, B.J., Su, X.S., Yuan, L.H., Pan, L.S., 1998. Correlation of
distillation with the product and quality of Luzhou-flavor
liquor. Liquor-Making Science & Technology 90, 30.
Xiang, W.L., Zhang, W.X., Hu, C., Wang, Z.Y., Tang, Y.Q., Kenji, K.,
Toru, S., 2005. Character and phylogenetic analysis of
prokaryotic microorganism in the strong aromatic Chinese
spirits cellar. Journal of Sichuan University: Engineering
Science Edition 37, 39–42.
Zhang, B., Wu, X.J., Chen, Q.R., 2003. Investigation on the
technique of cross-steaming by addition alcohol at the bottom
of the pots. Liquor-Making Science & Technology 116, 47–48.
Zhang, W.X., Yue, Y.Y., Xiang, W.L., Yang, R., Hu, C., Wang, Z.Y.,
Shen, C.H., Zhang, L., Ying, H., 2005. Changes and rules of
chemical composition in the fermented grains of Chinese
strong aromatic spirits. Journal of Sichuan University:
Engineering Science Edition 37, 44–48.
Zhong, J.X., Teng, K., Fan, M., Qian, L.L., Zhang, H.Y., 2008.
Distillation experiment of liquor by solid fermentation & its
discussion. Liquor-Making Science & Technology 166, 69–72.
Zhu, S.K., Lu, X., Ji, K.L., Guo, K.L., Li, Y.L., Wu, C.Y., Xu, G.W., 2007.
Characterization of flavor compounds in Chinese liquor
Moutai by comprehensive two-dimensional gas
chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Analytica
Chimica Acta 597, 340–348.